(AP) -- Mexico's federal health secretary says swine flu cases in January have surpassed the number for all of 2011, a year when the virus barely appeared worldwide.
Salomon Chertorivski Woldenberg says there have been 1,623 cases of all strains of flu in Mexico so far in January, 90 percent of them H1N1. That's the version that originally was called swine flu when it caused a pandemic that started in Mexico in 2009.
Chertorivski says 32 people have died from flu, 29 of them from H1N1.
That compares with about 1,000 flu cases in Mexico in all of 2011, with 35 deaths from all strains. About 250 cases last year were swine flu.
Despite the spike, Chertorivski said the incidents are within normal range for a flu season.
Jan 22, 2012
